JOIN USAs the Narendra Modi government celebrated its two years at India Gate on Saturday evening, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi launched an attack on the Prime Minister at a torch rally at Rajghat.
Criticising the Centre for celebrating its two years in office with “Bollywood” personalities attending the event at a time when farmers are committing suicide in Vidarbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra, Gandhi said, “People from Bollywood are attending the function and there will be song and dance items.”
Thousands of Congress supporters walked with lanterns and with their mobile torches lit from Samta Sthal to Rajghat to protest the power outage and water scarcity in the capital. Gandhi took the rally as an opportunity to lash out against both the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, digging into national and issues of Delhi at once.
He even drew a parallel between the two leaders and set himself apart from them saying he practises politics following ‘Gandhi’s ideology’. “There is a major difference between me and these two leaders.”
Hits out at AAP
He went on to draw huge applause from the supporters as he added after a pause, “Even if people of this country tell me to be in politics on the basis of lies, I will not be able to do it. May be I have suffered losses because of this because I do not make false promises.”
He criticised the AAP chief for not listening to the problems of poor people.Calling the BJP a party of public relations, he said the Congress would make a comeback in the capital citing it is the only solution to the electricity and water woes of the city. Drawing a reference to the Congress’s gaining five of the 13 seats in the municipal corporation elections here, he said the result would be repeated.
The focus of the rally, however, remained on power cuts as supporters poured in saying they wanted a solution to this’crisis’. “I came to the rally with my family members to protest the frequent power cuts,” said Ramo Devi, 62, who came from Raghubir Nagar.
Janki Kaur, a resident of Khayala, said she came to attend the rally to protest the lack of fresh water in her area. The rally saw an upbeat mood throughout with children and party workers capturing selfies with handfans reading ‘Kejriwal jo di free bijli’.
Some children turned up to catch a glimpse of Gandhi. Sandeep, a class six student, posed for a video as he shouted, “Congress party zindabaad”. “We have come in a big gang of friends as we have never seen a rally,” said Sandeep.“Also we wanted to see Rahul Gandhi,” his friend Akash quipped.
Delhi-centric issues
The issues that Congress supporters brought to the rally were Delhi-centric, ranging from pending pensions, rising price of essential commodities to “bijli, paani”.
Claiming that Modi and Kejriwal have been repeatedly fooling the people, Gandhi said that Delhi is suffering from a series of power cuts and water problems.
“But Kejriwalji sometimes talk about odd-even, at other times about pollution. But he does no work.”
He alleged Kejriwal has failed to look into the genuine demands of sanitation workers. “He (Kejriwal) cannot understand the plight of these safai karamcharis.”